Sir Joseph Yates of Blackburn, Lancashire (1722 – June 7, 1770) was an eminent English judge. He was appointed to the King's Bench in 1763, and transferred to the Common Pleas in 1770, but held the latter appointment little more than a month when he died.
He was buried at Cheam, in Surrey, where there is a monument to his memory.[1]
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"Sacred to the Memory
of the Honorable
Sir Joseph Yates, Knight,
of Peel Hall in Lancashire,
successively a Judge of the Courts
of King's Bench and Common Pleas;
whose merit advanced him to the
feat of Justice, which he filled with the most
distinguished abilities and invincible integrity.
He died the 7th day of June 1770,
in the 48th year of his age,
leaving the world to lament the loss
of an honest Man and able Judge,
firm to assert
and strenuous to support
the laws and constitution
of his Country."[2]
In one of his opinions, Judge Yates once wrote, "It is certain that every man has a right to keep his own sentiments, if he pleases: he has certainly a right to judge whether he will make them public, or commit them only to the sight of his own friends. In that state the manuscript is, in every sense his peculiar property; and no man can take it from him or make any use of it which he has not authorized, without being guilty of a violation of his property."[3]